Like Setting Up Punchlines
by HotPinkCoffee
Summary: A collection of short domestic scenes about Tobias, Marco and Ax in the woods. Spoilers up through #47. Rated for language and some teenage sex talk.
1. Swimming

**Author's Note:** So, whenever I'm too lazy to work on actual projects, I invariably end up writing "doodles" (longer than a drabble, too underdeveloped to be a one-shot) about Tobias, Marco and Ax. So this'll be my dumping ground for those. No story arc, no planned amount of chapters, just some short scenes. All of them take place between #45 and #49. Reviews are welcomed, of course, as are ideas and prompts! It's pretty likely I'll end up writing most of the ideas you fellas pitch at me.

**Swimming**

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"Take a deep breath, tuck the water in my chest, cross my fingers and hope for the best." –Florence + The Machine, _Swimming_

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"It's four hundred degrees out here! I haven't been this hot since the last time I went to Disneyland. And that was when I was five." Marco flopped back down on the couch. "Did we get a second sun or something?"

{I believe that a second sun would incinerate any living thing on the Earth's surface. As much as I find this temperature uncomfortable, I highly doubt we have suffered such a highly improbable astronomical event}, Ax said, not lifting his main eyes from his Good Food magazine.

"Ugh, Ax, please look up the word "exaggeration" next time you're near a dictionary. Though it's not much of one, since I'm practically melting. Melting, I tell you."

{You could always head back to the Hork-Bajir Valley}, I told him rather unhelpfully. The truth was, I didn't want to spend my whole day listening to Marco whine about the weather. At least he wasn't wearing a coat of feathers. Or fur, like Ax.

"Do you have any idea what Hork-Bajir crap smells like in August?" He sat up, wiped sweat from his brow. "I'm hitting the pond."

{This magazine seems to imply that there are techniques to remove pizza grease to make the pizza more palatable. Isn't grease a desirable taste? I certainly find it to be.}

"So we've noticed. You coming?"

Ax stood up, closed his magazine and gingerly placed it on his little bookshelf Marco had scavenged for us. I suppose that was one good thing about having Marco around; he had no reservations about using one of his human morphs and hitting up garage sales and dumpsters for furniture. We had a lot more space to put things. And on the flip side, a lot more things to find space for.

His presence here had changed things, especially lately. At first he seemed fairly eager to spend time with his newly reunited family, but after about two weeks he started spending more time here with Ax and me. He jokingly cited "irreconcilable differences", which Ax and I took to mean a lack of internet access and cable TV.

There was a pretty big part of me that resented it. He'd taken Ax's and my quiet, cozy little home and made it busy, cluttered and loud. But there really wasn't anything I could say about it, and besides, it wasn't like Marco and I hadn't saved each other's behinds many times over. We just were probably not ideal roommates.

Ax didn't seem to mind, at least. He still sometimes found Marco's babbling bewildering, but the Ax-man enjoys human contact. There was only so much of that I could provide for him on my own.

I figured I'd follow them to the pond, if only because it was generally shadier over there, and the heat was no more fun for me than it was for them. The pond isn't really a pond, per se, just a sort of marsh that pops up where the river gets really wide. There's big cat-tails, lily pads and frogs, and quite a few mosquitoes, even though there's still some current in the water.

Marco stripped down to his boxers and waded in, then dunked his head in to get his hair wet. "I so don't know or care what's in this water." Ax followed a few seconds later. As soon as he had the deer-half of his body submerged, he looked much more relaxed and content than he had been a few moments before. I wondered how hot it was on his home world.

I didn't spend long wondering, though, as my eye caught a fat bullfrog resting on a big fallen branch. I hadn't had much luck with breakfast this morning, so both the human and the hawk part of me instantly decided to go for it. Less than two seconds later, I was flapping back up to my branch with a fresh meal in my talons.

"Oh God, what if that was Kermit?" Marco said in faux despair.

{Thanks, Marco. I love it when you anthropomorphize my lunch.}

"Glad to be of service," he said back, then submerged himself completely.

I ate my lunch in silence while Ax and Marco waded and paddled. Ax seemed pretty fixated on understanding the concept of _less_ grease, which led to Marco trying to explain heart attacks with his incredibly limited biology knowledge. By the time I finished my frog, Marco was mixing up the aorta and arteries and Ax was possibly even more confused than when he first asked.

"Hey, Bird-Boy, come join us!"

{Yes, Tobias, I am finding this water quite refreshing. You could join us in human form.}

{Uh-uh. You're not supposed to swim for an hour after eating. Didn't you ever take a swim class?}

"Heck no. Ax and I learned to swim right here. Don't you remember? Rachel was in that cute little red tankini."

{Hey, that's my girlfriend.}

{None of you humans were very equipped to help me learn to swim}, Ax pouted.

"Yeah, like we're supposed to know how to teach an Andalite to swim." Marco rolled his eyes. "It wasn't exactly easy working with you back then. You were in your gung-ho "honor! Having you inferior humans support my weight in the water is dishonorable!" phase."

While a bit extreme, Marco's impersonation of early Ax wasn't entirely inaccurate. Ax had mellowed a lot over the last few years. He was still big on the honor thing, but it seemed that now he was fighting for Earth for honor and because he actually cared about the fate of this planet. And he still thought humans were inferior, but he'd learned not to say that out loud. Too often, at least.

I thought back to that time. It had been when we'd just met Ax. Marco had had a bad run-in with some sharks a few days before and Ax couldn't swim at all, so we'd decided everyone should learn how to do it. I'd scouted out this pond as a place where we could have an Andalite in fairly deep water. It had been spring, so the water had been several feet deep. They'd all spent a weekend practicing backstrokes, breaststrokes and doggie paddles. I'd stayed in the trees, keeping an eye out and trying not to stare too much at Rachel.

Teaching Marco had been fairly easy, though he still wasn't the strongest swimmer, but teaching Ax had been pretty difficult. No one, even Ax, knew how Andalites swam. We ended up having to check out books from the library about water buffalo and making educated guesses. Eventually, with enough practice, he got the hang of it.

It had been nice, spending a weekend with the six of us and no immediate threat. Back when we still thought the Andalites would come save us. Before Arbat's doomed mission or our assassination attempt on Visser One. Before the Ellimist and Crayak and David and Taylor. Before Rachel started intimidating me and before Jake got too serious. Before torture.

It had been at least two years ago. Strange to think how much we all had changed.

Marco and Ax went back to whatever conversation they'd been having. Ax attempted to make a joke and Marco was laughing at how awkward it was. I felt jealous, in a way. I knew they both had their personal demons, but they both looked at ease in the pond. Like they could put it out of their minds and just enjoy the cool water on a hot day.

"Dude, Tobias, it's only a few feet deep."

{Okay, fine,} I muttered. I dropped out of my tree and demorphed. With my entire morphing suit on, I jumped into the pond.


	2. This or That

**This or That**

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{Boxers or briefs?}

"Boxers. Though they bunch like crazy in our stupid morphing oufits. We so need to figure out a good old pair of Levi's. Blind of deaf?"

{Like I'd ever give up these eyes. Besides, half of what we hear these days is thought-speak anyway.}

{I am sure that thought-speak comprises a much smaller percentage of what we hear than half.}

{Yeah, sure, Ax. Anyway. Too hot or too cold?}

"After the Arctic Circle or wherever that was? Give me Saudi Arabia if you have to. Yasmine Bleeth or Pam Anderson?"

{Yasmin Bleeth, for sure.}

"Really? I thought you had a thing for blondes."

{I have a thing for a certain blonde. Live forever lonely or die happy?}

"How typically morbid of you. How lonely is lonely?"

{Your right hand forever lonely.}

"Ouch. Die happy and surrounded by babes, please. Prison or the insane asylum?"

{The insane asylum is the building where humans quarantine _vecols_ with mental malfunctions, am I right? That was where George Edelman was kept.}

"For God's sake, Ax, if you say _vecol_ again…"

{I doubt I will ever become accustomed to the ridiculous word "handicapable", Marco.}

"Could you pack more disdain into your voice? Because I'm honestly curious."

{Enough, guys. Insane asylum. Guy who thinks he's a bird who fights aliens? I'd fit right in. End the war tomorrow and all die, or have it go on another year and we all live?}

"No-brainer. I'm a pretty big fan of living. Money or fame?"

{I'm afraid I don't understand the purpose of this ritual.}

"It's a highly methodological and research-tested form of psychoanalysis called "this or that", Ax. And currently it's pegging Tobias as a sick, depressing bastard of a bird."

{Hey, you were the one who came up with "prison or the insane asylum".}

"True. I must be spending too much time with you."

{Marco, any time spent together is too much time for me.}

"And _you've_ been spending too much time with Rachel. Through the heart, Tobias. Through the heart."

{I still do not understand the purpose. Are you attempting to deduce each others' psychological underpinnings through questions about undergarments and temperature?}

{It's a time-waster, Ax. Marco's bored because you haven't fixed the generator yet-}

"Which means no TV! You don't understand the pain of missing a new South Park episode because you have no sense of humor."

{I have plenty of humor, Marco. I'm just over the age of twelve. Anyway, Ax, if I didn't talk him through this he'd keep talking to us anyway.}

"Damn straight."

{Might as well have it be a conversation instead of a monologue.}

{And so you are engaging in a verbal…game?}

{Yeah, sure. Although we might have run this into the ground.}

"We could play Never Have I Ever."

{May I play as well?}

{Uh, sure. Stick out your fingers.}

"No fair, he has fourteen fingers. And you don't even have fingers."

{Fine, I'll demorph. Okay, we go around in a circle and each say something we've never done. If the other people have done it, they have to put down one finger. The first person to have no fingers out loses.}

"Or wins, depending on your perspective."

"For example: never have I ever driven a car. Now Marco has to put down a finger."

"Screw you, Tobias. Anyway, Ax, the more embarrassing the questions the better."

{I believe I understand. Are we going clockwise or counter-clockwise?}

"How about clockwise, so you can give it a go?"

{Never have I ever morphed a gorilla.}

"No fair. I call conspiracy. Anyway, Ax, go for embarrassing. At least one person should be red as a tomato by the end of it. So. Never have I ever had sex with Rachel, despite so many fantasies…you're _kidding_."

"…We've done other stuff. Just not that. Yet."

"Wow. Okay. I really thought I had you there. Well, Ax, there's your cherry tomato."

"Never have I ever had creepy sex fantasies about my teammates who I wasn't in a relationship with."

"Actually, my sex fantasies are shockingly un-creepy, but I'll concede that one. Great, now Ax has as many fingers as me on one hand."

{Never have I ever visited a museum.}

"God, Ax, what part of interesting or embarrassing are you tripping over? Fine, six."

"Nine for me."

"Never have I ever dated a psycho. Estrid and Rachel both count."

{…I am now at thirteen. And I would appreciate it if you would cease mentioning that certain encounter.}

"Rachel isn't crazy. Never have I ever used the computer to surf for porn."

"You suck, Tobias. Five."

"Oh, no way, you too, Ax?"

{I believed it would be educational. Twelve. Never have I ever had intercourse.}

"Dude, Ax, most people don't just admit that here on Earth."

"Marco, you're still at five."

"Oh, shut up! I've been a little busy saving the world! And I don't see you at seven either."

"Hey, at least I've been a little busy being a hawk. I've got a better excuse than you."

{Perhaps Marco is finding difficulty acquiring a mate because of his small stature.}

"If you didn't have a tail I'd deck you right now, Ax. Anyway, never have I ever eaten roadkill."

"Low blow, Marco. Seven. Never have I ever blown our cover."

"Bird Boy, you have no place to talk about low blows when you're playing that card. Four."

{Do these games normally produce such tension?}

"No, but Marco's an ass."

{I believe I should return to repairing the generator. This game seems unnecessarily confrontational.}

"Good going, Tobias. You scared Ax off"

"You started it. Right off the bat you were accusing Rachel of being a psycho."

"I hate to break it to your, Tobias, but she kinda is."

"I'm not going to have this conversation with you."

"Good."

"Money. I'm not big on the attention thing."

"Huh?"

"You asked money or fame. I never got around to answering it. Basketball or baseball?"


	3. Uselessness

**Author's Note:** Sometimes the doodles are angsty. Thanks to everyone for all the lovely reviews; I promise I'll write some less mopey, more entertaining trio fic for the next chapter.

**Uselessness**

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"Can't stop what's coming, can't stop what is on its way." –Tori Amos, _Bells for Her_

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"I'm just saying, someday we'll need to buy our own health insurance. And I'm saying that we should get really low premiums, since we pretty much fix every problem on our own besides Andalite flu."

Ax had long since stopped paying attention to my ramble, so I was mostly just talking to myself. I do that sometimes. It keeps my mind off things. "Things" used to be the sick clench in my stomach whenever I thought about my mom, out there in space or maybe dead, maybe dead because of me. Now "things" mostly consisted of me wondering why I was still risking my neck in an intergalactic war. And about whether I'd done the right thing about Nora. Neither of which is something that I want to allow myself too much time to dwell on.

"Life insurance, on the other hand. They can milk us forever for life insurance. Though we can always point out that we've survived more near-death scenarios than Houdini and a 'Nam vet combined."

{Are you ever quiet, Marco?} Tobias was cranky. He usually is when he can't find a good mouse.

"Nope. Never."

{Could you be? Please? Could you make that effort for me? Because I'm getting really tired of your rambling and your CDs and your videogames.}

To which I just rolled my eyes. I was used to Tobias not wanting me around, and I was also pretty used to not caring. If I'd bailed every time someone didn't want me around, I'd have quit the Animorphs in about two days over Rachel's crankiness. I'm pretty used to being the odd one out, the one people put up with, because it's for their own good. I'm the one who makes jokes and sometimes blows up at people or says mean things I don't really believe. I may not be the most pleasant person alive but, in my defense, I'm a hundred percent necessary. They need me for my wonderful, scheming, kinda paranoid brain. And because the Animorphs with no sense of humor would be a really, really dour little group.

_Necessary if not always pleasant._ A personality, a philosophy, whatever. An honest person would put that on my tombstone. Thankfully, I plan on surrounding myself with people who'll write great things about how I valiantly and selflessly saved the world from aliens. And hopefully didn't die in the process.

"Tobias, do you smile? I'm dead serious. I've known you for what, two years? Never once seen those pretty bird lips twitch upward." I turned on the TV. Food Channel, one of Ax's favorite stations. Mostly it just reminded me of how I'd cut off my arm for something to eat besides the raw Ramen and beef jerky Jake brought us.

{I've found out what _your_ mouth reminds me of. The goddamn Energizer bunny. Keeps going and going with no destination at all.}

"Ha ha! And because laughter is on sale at Marco-Mart, you get an extra Ha! free of charge."

Okay, so maybe I was a little bit obnoxious these days. But it wasn't like Tobias was paying rent on the place. And I was useful. I was useful for my incredible technological skills that made up for anything Ax couldn't do on his own.

Which mostly consisted of telling him not to click on pop-ups and that the prince of Tanzania didn't actually want to wire him forty million dollars, come to think of it.

To be honest, I was feeling pretty useless these days. I was filling my days with dragging in garage-sale furniture and standing around watching Hork-Bajir do things. I loved my mom, but things were awkward now and she was busy with Toby. Worse, in the Animorphs, nobody was taking my advice seriously, and if I were them, I probably wouldn't either. I was the kid who blew it in front of his dad. Who had to fake his death because his cover was gone. I saw it in Jake's face every time he looked at me, and I wanted to punch him and tell him he could still take me seriously, but I knew. I knew he was right. I'd screwed up.

It had been worth it, but it didn't change the fact that I'd screwed up. And that I was pretty much useless now. And feeling useless just made me question why I was part of this anymore.

I threw the remote down. "God, who _cares_ what Jake thinks."

{Who cares what Jake thinks about what?} Tobias asked.

Oops. "That was supposed to be mental."

{I didn't know you had an internal monologue. I assumed you just said everything that came to mind. Everything.}

"What can I say? I'm a deep guy."

{Caring too much about what Jake thinks isn't exactly deep.}

Ax, probably assuming a squabble was about to start, went off to go feed. It was kinda cute, almost. Like a kid who leaves the room when their parents fight. And thank God I wasn't his actual parent, because that would make that family more complicated than Jean Grey's.

"Shut up, Tobias. You live in a tree."

{Big words from the guy who couch-surfs in the woods.}

That's what happens when you let the self-pity take over. The jokes get bad. Or they evaporate, which is what they did right then. I had no snappy comeback for Tobias. Instead I glued my eyes to the television. Some kind of salad. I didn't crave variety in my diet enough to want a salad.

{You know,} Tobias said thoughtfully, {I used to care a lot what Jake thought about me. He has that kind of effect on people.}

"Tobias, no offense, but you were a bully magnet who'd known him for ten minutes and you were impressed that he was the only kid you knew who didn't want to beat you up. If Jake and I were girls, we'd have been making each other friendship bracelets since kindergarten. It's not the same thing."

{Same idea, though. You want him to approve of you. You want to be essential to him. How do you think I felt, before the Ellimist gave me my powers back?}

I glared at him. "You're enjoying this, aren't you? Playing shrink with me so you don't have to think about how messed up your life is?"

{Oh. Right. I forgot that you hate people helping you out,} Tobias said snippily.

I couldn't really see how Tobias was helping me out. Talking didn't solve things. Talking just spent more time on things. It made you think about it more. And I really, really didn't want to think that after all this time, my best friend was finally gone. So wrapped up in this stupid, pointless war that he didn't have any use for his best friend because said friend was a security risk.

In a strange way, it felt like the war had been a trade with God or something. My mother back, but my best friend dies. He spends the rest of the life without a trace of the old Jake left. There really wasn't anything funny about that, so I didn't want to think about it.

The silence was killing me. "I'm heading back to the valley." I began the morph to osprey.

I really expected some snide comment from Tobias. Something like "good riddance" or "thank God" or "finally". But maybe I didn't know him as well as I thought. Or maybe I was just being especially paranoid that day. I finished the morph and took flight, and Tobias didn't say a word.


	4. Down By the Banks of the Hanky Panky

**Author's Note:** Well, I promised a silly one. It doesn't get much sillier than this.

**Down By the Banks of the Hanky Panky**

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"Okay, I can only do this because you're in human morph. Because otherwise I risk losing my fingers."

"I assure you, I have more self-control than to reflexively attack your extremities when you tap my head, Marco. Fleckzzzz. Flexively."

"Yeah, I'm sure the remains of the muffins Rachel brought us can attest to your self-control, Ax. Anyway, you have the hand part down, right?"

"It is a simple pattern. I "have it down"."

"Okay, on the count of three. One, two, three…_down by the banks of the Hanky Panky, where the bullfrogs jump from bank to banky, with a splish splash sodapop, who fell off the lily pad and went_- Ow! Ax! You have to wait until I say "kerplop" before you smack me in the head! And not hard enough to give me brain damage next time."

"I forgot how much stronger human arms are. And I wouldn't have hit you so soon if you'd memorized the pattern correctly. You passed over one of the single-handed claps."

{Do I even want to know what you two are doing?}

"Generator's down again."

"Marco is educating me about human culture again."

{Oh, _great_. What's he teaching you this time?}

"Human bonding rituals called "campfire songs", I believe."

{Oh, Christ.}

"Hey, he could have answered that I was teaching him the "Hanky Panky"."

{Thanks for the completely unnecessary mental image, Marco.}

"Is "hanky panky" another human euphemism? Yoof. Yoofemizm."

"Ax has never been to camp, Tobias. Can you believe the injustice of that?"

{Lucky him. Being in a galaxy far far away and all that.}

"Only nerds quote Lucas."

{Says the guy who brought about forty Star Wars videogames with him into the woods.}

"But I don't quote it. Usually. Anyway, I can't remember most camp songs because I only went that one time in fourth grade with Jake to basketball camp-"

{You went to basketball camp? Did they make you play with the kindergarteners?}

"You're a big bird, picking on the short kid. Anyway, we did Old McDonald's, Down by the Bay, B-I-N-G-O and Hanky Panky. Oh, and Hole in the Middle of the Sea."

"It appears that many of these games involve reciting letter sounds or seemingly arbitrary phrases."

{You could do Boom Chicka Boom.}

"I don't remember how to do that one."

{Really? We did it every single night at camp, every single year. And I was there for like, seven years.}

"Big fan of s'mores and nature walks?"

{My aunt and uncle didn't mind paying the entrance fee if it kept me out of their hair all summer. I wasn't a big fan.}

"Are these camps traditional institutions for supervising children?"

{More like breeding grounds for little overcompensating creeps and counselors who don't pay attention to their job.}

"Wow, that's even more cynical than I could come up with. And I went to basketball camp."

{Well, the one year I went to arts camp was okay.}

"Jeez, no wonder you got beat up."

{I guess you could do Baby Shark.}

"Tobias, you're a genius. _Baby shark, doo doo, do do do do, mama shark doo doo, do do do do, daddy shark doo doo, do do do do…_"

"Those hand gestures are very similar to the hand gestures made my infant Andalites before they learn to thought-speak. I believe ancient Andalites used hand symbols throughout their entire lives."

{Huh. That's kinda cool, Ax-man. Marco's not saying anything in sign language that's mortally offensive, is he?}

"_Go out swimming doo doo, do do do do…_"

"No, I believe most of these symbols represent flowers."

"Yeah, right. There is nothing flowery about sharks. _Lose a leg, doo doo, do do do do…_"

{Don't you know the whole song, Marco? First you have to lose an arm and swim in circles.}

"You can swim in circles with one leg."

"I believe you would sink with only one leg. Ink."

"Well, since you two know so much about Baby Shark, it's your responsibility to teach me. As a teammate and all. We'll use our awesome knowledge of Baby Shark to shock and awe Visser Three the next time he morphs some hellish space-beast."

{I can't believe I have to teach you Baby Shark. Talk about taking one for the team.}

"It's because I'm your favorite teammate."

{Oh, yeah right. That's so inaccurate it's not even funny.}

"Oh, the sound of bonding! See, Ax, this is how campfires bring people closer together! _Make new friends, keep the old, one group's silver and the other's gold…_"

{Marco, did you learn all these songs while you were sitting on the sidelines at basketball camp?}

"I do not understand how this is causing us to bond any more than we would through normal conversation."

"Well, due to the magic of Baby Shark, I now know Tobias is a camp kid and that you know sign language. Which is more than I knew ten minutes ago, and way more than I'd know through another conversation about how the Yeerks are ruining our lives."

{And yet you still don't know Baby Shark itself.}

"And neither does Ax! It's your duty as an ambassador of Earth to teach him, Tobias."

{I think it's my duty to keep an eye out for intruders and put up with your nonsense. And maybe catch a rabbit. There's a nice warren about two miles from here.}

"…And there goes the conversation. I take it that means later, Tobias."

"Have a pleasant afternoon hunting, Tobias."

{Later, you two. Ax, hit Marco extra hard on the next Hanky Panky, will you?}


	5. Movie Night

**Movie Night**

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"Hey, Tobias, we thought you'd never get here," Marco said from his position on the couch. His eyes were bloodshot and his hair was matted and crusted with what I assumed was Hork-Bajir blood. Ax was next to him, similarly covered in mud and bodily fluids. His tail hung low on the ground and his normally proud stance was replaced with a slouch.

{Hard as it is to believe, the weather changed and I had to go through headwind in both directions. Besides, I had to update the Chee. Why aren't you at the, you know…new place? Or washing off in the river?}

About five hours ago, the Hork-Bair Valley had been attacked by Visser One. Once we'd flooded the Valley, we'd evacuated the Hork-Bajir to a new camp. I still didn't know what to call the new location.

"Finished all the bandaging and carrying stretchers. We're sick of looking at bodies and dying things. And I'd probably fall asleep in the river and drown," he said. Ax nodded, a gesture that was only now starting to look natural, in agreement. I'd gotten the easy job, telling Jake and Rachel's Chee that he could leave his post. The others had either headed home or stuck around to tend to the wounded and move the few possessions the Hork-Bajir had. For all I knew, Cassie was still out there sewing stitches.

I landed on the back of the couch, rather than in the usual tree. The TV was off; they'd just been staring into space, probably, since neither Marco nor Ax were the type to have heart-to-hearts. I couldn't blame them. It had been one of those days, one of those death-filled, depressing, exhausting days. And this time there'd been so many graves to dig for our own allies.

{We assumed you'd be at Rachel's,} Ax said. {I've noticed you typically are spending time with her at this time in the evening.}

{Rachel's having dinner with her dad tonight, I think. Not a good time for the amazing Hawk Boy to show up as her date.} My joke was a bit too forced. Truthfully, I just didn't want to be around Rachel tonight. She got energetic after battles, and all I wanted to do was forget.

I'd been able to keep from thinking about it, so many of Toby's people dead, and having to tell Emily and Lewis about their dad…when I was doing something, I didn't have to think about it. {You guys up for a movie?}

Marco gave a mirthless laugh. "When am I not up for a movie?"

{I would enjoy watching a movie, as long as it is somewhat more scientifically accurate than the Star Wars movie we watched several days ago. I found the impossibilities distracted me from the plot.}

"Ax watches soaps," Marco mused, "and he thinks Star Wars calls for too much suspension of disbelief."

{We could watch Indiana Jones.} I puffed up one wing, as if shrugging. It was the closest I'd be able to get to human body language. {Didn't you bring Temple of Doom with you when you moved out?}

"I think I've drained my adrenaline gland for the next twenty years or so. I say comedy."

{Ax doesn't like comedy. He doesn't get it.}

{Actually, Tobias, if you and Marco would not mind explaining the jokes to me, I would appreciate a comedy.}

That surprised me a bit, but I guess Ax didn't want to watch any more bloodshed after the fight today. Easy to forget, with how much he was a warrior, that it bothered him as much as it did any of us. {Okay, sure. Shakespeare in Love?}

Marco rolled his eyes. "You would, Tobias."

{Hey, what does that mean, Mr. Princess Bride?}

"Rob Reiner is _funny_. Not that I mind looking at Gwyneth Paltrow, though."

{I found The Princess Bride to be rather engaging, actually,} Ax interjected, {I enjoy the human humor derived from stating truisms. And I found Inigo Montoya's revenge for his father's death to be very satisfactory.}

{Okay, so not Shakespeare in Love. We don't have to do comedy, I guess. Rocky's pretty uplifting.}

"Ax and I watched Rocky last week. He wouldn't shut up about how admirable Rocky's training regimen was. Or how stupid boxing was."

Ax sniffed and turned his nose up. {Only humans would create a sport where the goal is assault and injure the opponent for entertainment. Even competitive Andalite tail-fighting results in minimal injuries to both parties.}

{Yeah, boxing probably isn't the highlight of human culture.}

"Muhammad Ali resents that comment. Anyway, we have…" Marco hoisted himself up off the couch with visible effort. Even if morphing heals wounds, it doesn't help much with exhaustion. He surveyed the box of movies he'd scavenged. "We have Animal House, Clerks, Spaceballs and Ghostbusters for comedies. Oh, and When Harry Met Sally, but _some_ of us don't appreciate the genius of Rob Reiner. Other lighthearted stuff…oh, hey, I didn't know we had Monty Python."

{Monty what?}

Marco stared at me bug-eyed.

{No, seriously, Monty what?}

"Monty Python, Tobias. Monty Python. How have you possibly been living in a tree this long?"

As if that cleared anything at all up. {Well, it's been a few years.}

"I don't know you," Marco said as he popped the tape into the VHS player. "You're dead to me."

Ax rolled his eyes, another trait he picked up from us. We weren't entirely sure if he understood the social significance of it, but it seemed appropriate enough here.

"Consider this your education," Marco said as he slouched back onto the couch. I morphed to human, since hawk eyes are a little too good at seeing the pixels on an old television screen. I still sat perched on the backrest of the couch, though. For some reason that just felt more natural.

It became apparent about five minutes in that explaining these jokes to Ax would be impossible.

{Tobias, why are they clapping bowls together?}

"I think those are coconut shells, Ax, and I have no idea."

"It's because they don't have horses. The coconuts make it sound like they have horses. And it's funny because that's a ridiculous way to pretend to have horses."

{Ah,} said Ax, clearly still not understanding the humor.

The rest of the movie was punctuated by further questions, and one stray comment about how the Black Night was both foolish and somewhat noble. I tried to answer, but sometimes things are funny and you just can't explain why.

{What is the purpose of the large wooden rabbit?}

{Why do the peasants appear to be harvesting mud?}

{What is the meaning of "ni"? Is it an inherently comical phrase? Would it be a satisfying mouth-sound to make while human?}

After {Tobias, if I am to understand that rabbits are docile, why does this rabbit appear to be vicious and bloodthirsty?} I sort of snapped.

"I don't know, Ax. Why don't you ask Marco? It's his movie."

{Because he has been asleep for the past twenty minutes.}

Sure enough, he was. In fact, he was so asleep that he didn't even twitch at the occasional fly on his face, attracted by the blood in his hair. I wondered how worth it it would be to wake him up and have him try and explain the humor of killer rabbits to Ax.

Part of me was jealous. Ever since I became a hawk, I can't get that much deep, uninterrupted sleep. Hawks just don't sleep deeply, and any sleeping I do in human morph needs me to wake up every two hours. But, I guess, it's really just fair when you consider that I never had to be a student when the others were.

I sighed. "Just pretend this is an action movie, Ax. It doesn't matter if you don't get the jokes."

I should have predicted that the movie would end on a scene that would make it impossible for Ax to swallow that, given how absurd the rest of the movie was. As the credits rolled Ax and I just stared in confusion.

{I did not understand that plot.}

"I don't think we were supposed to."

Marco grunted in his sleep and shifted position. I considered waking him up to complain about his leaving me to field all of Ax's many questions, but instead just tossed a sweater over him.

"Thanks, dad," he murmured. I felt jealous again. Jealous of Marco having his family back, having had a father who would put blankets over him when he fell asleep, jealous that he was getting so close to Ax, jealous that he had everything at the Hork-Bajir valley and didn't appreciate it enough to stay there. But the thing about jealousy is that it doesn't do any good; it's just an angrier form of self-pity, when you get down to it.

And what right did I have for self-pity, when so many Hork-Bajir were dead? When my namesake was tallying up the bodies of her people? And of course, thinking that just made it worse.

{Tobias?}

"Yeah, Ax-man?"

{Why did you disobey Jake's orders during the battle? I heard him calling for you to desist while he ordered me to unleash the dam.}

I exhaled heavily and ran my fingers through my hair, noting how strange it felt, how much I was just going through the motions of what other people do when someone asks them a hard question. "I didn't hear him."

Ax gave me that look that told me he didn't believe me, and I instantly felt bad for lying to him. I was his closest friend, after all. But he respected Jake, and I wasn't sure if I did anymore. I hadn't been sure since that battlefield in medieval France. Since he silently volunteered me for torture. Since he used Rachel as a prop to beat down David.

And that was one thing I didn't have to be jealous of Marco for anymore. Before all this happened, before meeting Elfangor and getting involved in the war, I'd been jealous that I couldn't be Jake's friend. Or moreover, couldn't be Jake.

I wasn't jealous of Jake now.

"It was the heat of battle, Ax. The Hork-Bajir are…they mean a lot to me. More than to anyone else." I saw Ax stiffen, as if I'd snubbed him by preferring primitive Hork-Bajir to him. "They're a community that's been good to me. Besides you, they're the closest I have to family."

Ax thought about this for a moment. I guess I'd hoped the last sentence would satisfy him. Dating Rachel has brought out the diplomat in me. {Were you not my friend, Tobias, I would criticize you for failing to follow your Prince's orders. And yet it's not my place to do so when I directly disobeyed him when we battled Visser Two.}

"Glass houses, huh?" I said, staring out at the stars with my weak human eyes.

I didn't know if Ax recognized the quote, but he nodded at the sentiment. His eyelids were starting to droop a bit. One of his stalk eyes seemed wilted.

"You should get some sleep, Ax-man."

{Yes. It has been a trying day.} He straightened himself up self-consciously. {You should demorph. You have approximately ten percent of your time left.}

"Yeah. By the way, Ax, we should hit the 'Bon tomorrow. I'm sure we can find some lost change behind the Laundromat. After we check up on the Hork-Bajir and see how they're holding up."

{I would enjoy that very much.} He started to walk out to the open air, where he would sleep.

"Ax?"

He turned. {Yes, Tobias?}

"Let's do that just the two of us, okay? Have it be our secret Cinnabon run."

As I began to demorph, he nodded, smiled and told me {certainly, Tobias}.


	6. Never Have I Ever

**VI: Never Have I Ever**

-/-

-/-

Jake looked at the faces around him with genuine incredulity that they were playing this. The last time he'd engaged in Never Have I Ever was when he'd been to kid's basketball camp when he was ten. But when he'd stopped by to deliver parts for them to fix the generator and some food, Marco had sat him down and insisted on it.

"I need something to remember being a stupid high school student!" Marco had said melodramatically, "and you haven't had a good time in two years. Not to mention you brought the material for s'mores and Ax doesn't like ghost stories because he thinks they're stupid and superstitious-"

Eventually, Jake had relented. So they were sitting around the small campfire, all human. Ax's head bobbed wildly as he kept his two eyes on the bag of Hershey's bars Marco was using to gesticulate. "Okay, before we do anything, and I mean anything, I'm laying down the ground rules – nothing that happens here ever gets back to the girls. Especially Rachel."

"We heard you the first time, Marco," Tobias said, staring stonily into the fire. "We all know how much you have to embarrassed about."

"Says the boy who eats rats."

"I do not understand why we must play this game instead of This or That. This or That seems much more peaceful. Peessse." Ax reached for the bag of marshmallows, but Marco snatched it away.

"Because I know all of Jake's answers to that. And you have to wait until I make the s'more for you, Ax. It's tradition. Anyway, fellow men and comrades, put your fingers out. We go clockwise. Tobias, you start."

"Never have I ever organized a stupid game of Never Have I Ever."

Marco retracted his pinky while cooking a marshmallow. "Well, you're no fun, are you?"

Ax looked horrified as the marshmallow caught fire. "Why are you destroying my marshmallow?"

"Let the master work, Ax. You'll get your marshmallow," Marco said impatiently, blowing the flames on the little white and black ball out, pulling the burnt skin off and eating it. "Never have I ever had breasts."

Tobias' usual stoic gaze turned into a glare, barely, as he pulled in an index finger. "Shut up!"

Jake glared at Marco for bringing up Taylor, but Tobias seemed more insulted by the gendered jab.

Marco put up his hands. "Hey, at least you were a hot chick."

"Never have I ever had to get my thyroid checked because my parents were worried about my height," Jake said with a smirk.

Marco pursed his lips and went down to eight. "Oh yeah, Jake, pick on the short kid. Fine. I don't care. I still throw hoops better than you. Ax, here's your s'more."

Ax shoved the s'more into his mouth, trying to speak while chewing. "This creation is fantastic! Fantazzzztick! Fa- aaah! It is not releasing my fingers!"

The other boys laughed quietly as Ax tried to remove the remaining melted marshmallow from his hand. Jake looked through the plastic bags he'd brought from the mall and convenience store and pulled out some of the soda he'd brought for them. He had to be careful about sneaking food into the woods, but that didn't mean that they couldn't have some luxury items. He tossed one to Marco, one to Tobias, and, after a bit of consideration, set one down next to Ax. "Drink it slowly. It'll feel funny in your mouth the first time."

"There is a fluid inside this canister?"

"Yeah, Mountain Dew. It's carbonated, so there's bubbles in it."

"Oh, this should be interesting," Marco said as he leaned forward to watch Ax.

After Jake showed him how to open the can, Ax looked tentatively at it, and then took a large swallow. "Oh! Oh! It is the same sensation that occurred when I ate Pop Rocks!"

"You gave him Pop Rocks?" Jake yelled at Marco and Tobias.

"Don't look at me," Tobias said, with a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"Pop Rocks are the height of human ingenuity, Jake. How could we let Ax spend his whole time on Earth without a taste of them? It would be a crime. A crying shame. A disservice-"

"May I have another?" Ax motioned to his now-empty can of Mountain Dew.

"You're already done? I only brought a twelve-pack, so drink this slower." Jake handed him another. "Try one sip every two minutes or so. Make it last."

Ax fumbled a bit with the pop-top, then, once figured out, took a slow sip. "Never have I ever had intercourse."

Marco threw his hands up. "Dammit, Ax, I thought we told you not to do that one again!"

"On the contrary, Marco, you told me that the intent of the game was to make someone "as red as a tomato". When I used that phrase the last time we played, both you and Tobias turned a distinct shade of red. Tinct. Diss tinct. May I have another s'more?" Ax smiled smugly.

Tobias took a glance at Marco's hands and snorted. "Oh yeah right, Marco. You liar. Am I supposed to expect you've been getting it on with some Hork-Bajir girl in the woods since the last time we played?"

"I've been doing it with your mom, Tobias. Your mom."

"Yeah, well, your mom's _face_."

There was an awkward silence, punctuated only by the pop of the fire and Ax taking a sip of his soda.

"You know I didn't mean it," Marco said quickly.

"Yeah, me neither," Tobias said equally hastily.

"And the more important thing is that Jake put a finger down!" Marco crowed. "You and Cassie, Jake? Really? I didn't know you had it in you!"

Jake felt his face get warm.

"I do not understand. Is it considered shameful for humans to have had intercourse, or not to have had intercourse?"

"Both," Tobias told Ax. "It doesn't have to make sense."

"Ah. There are some aspects of human culture that I doubt I'll ever understand."

"You and me both. Doesn't make it less embarrassing, though."

"Never have I ever had sex in a barn." Marco grinned wickedly at Jake.

Jake, still blushing furiously, tossed his empty soda can at Marco. He missed, barely. "It's not even your turn, jerk."

"Nah, I think I'll pass," Tobias added unhelpfully.

Grimacing, Jake retracted another finger.

"Oh, gross. I sit on those haystacks." Marco handed Ax another s'more.

Ax stuffed it in his mouth eagerly, scattering crumbs and lumps of melted chocolate all over his face. After several seconds of enthusiastic chewing and pushing the s'more back into his mouth with his fingers, he managed to say "certainly the amount of manure and bodily fluids of injured animals in the barn are a greater health concern than Prince Jake and Cassie's stray sexual fluids."

The other sat in silence. Jake put his hands over his face. Marco put his hands to his temples. Tobias looked pointedly away from everyone else.

"Floooids. Fluidzzz. Quite an entertaining word," Ax continued cheerfully, then licked the white goo off his fingers.

Jake sighed and put another log on the fire. "…Drink your soda, Ax. Just…drink your soda."


	7. Marco's Journal October 4th

**A/N:** Typos intentional.

**Marco's Journal October 4th**

-/-

-/-

Dear Diary,

There are some days that I realize that my life is like one big set up for a hilarious joke. A charming young heartbreaker, his jock best friend, his best friend's psycotic cousin and tree-hugging crush and some dweeb from school walk through a construction site…the problem is that there's no good jokes about aliens that anyone else will get.

When I'm prematurely dead I want people to read this diary and publish it so they can see my tortured genius and so I can piss off Tobias from beyond the grave.

This is a beautiful perfectly composed picture of a rocket ship broken down to its core component, the allmighty squiggle. Rocket ships used to be more fun to draw before they turned out to be death machines that shoot drakon beams.

Tobias is probably reading this over my shoulder with his hawk eyesight. Hey Tobias. Your girlfriend's crazy.

Guess not.

Today is another boring day in the woods with no generator. You'd think for all his bragging an andalite could figure out how to steal electricity from a downed power line with some consistancy.

I hope to god saving the world is a get out of jail free card for petty crimes. So far we have:

1. stealing cable

2. stealing electricity

3. stealing clothes from the laundromat

4. identity theft – don't tell Cassie

5. faking death – not sure if this is illegal

6. kidnapping – not really a petty crime

7. crossing the border without ID

8. breaking curfue

9. getting on an airplane without a ticket

10. underage driving

11. car theft

12. truck theft

13. spaceship theft

14. delenque dilenque delinquincy skipping school

15. credit card fraud

16. hacking

17. trespassing

18. vandelism

19. attempted murder

that's about where the list goes from kind of funny to just depressing.

Tobias is getting on my nerves with all his brooding. I get that he doesn't want me here but the bird could at least try to enjoy some film classics. The guy eats bunnies for breakfast and pokes out eyeballs every weekend but he says the Godfather is too violent. I'm thinking he doesn't like mafia movies because he's alergic to having a good time, but that's our Tobias for you. Not happy unless he's unhappy.

He's been like that a lot since Taylor or maybe I just notice it more now that I'm always around. Normally I'm not really patient with his whining woe-is-me crap but I guess he's got the trump card with torture. I don't understand not even trying to move past things, but maybe torture's one of those things. We all have nightmares and are a bunch of paranoid freaks and we all forget who we are, but directed specifically at you, interogating you? Must be different. Tobias and I were never close but even I can see the difference between moping about how much this war has fucked us up forever, and moping about something even more painful.

I thought I ran through my life supply of patience for woe with my dad, but I guess I can still afford a little to the big feather duster.

Future publisher, don't publish that last page. I don't want Tobias trying to fly into a window or anything again. The world would miss that wet blanket. I would too, but I'll probably be dead. And I'd never admit it.

But this journal is to write about my tortured genius, not his. I'm currently tortured by internet deficit while Ax plays with live power cables and tries not to set the woods on fire. I'm currently tortured by rooming with a guy who thinks life is a Googoo Dolls song and another guy who thinks "that's my Ronald, McDonald" is a classic pop hit. I'm currently tortured by mosquitos the size of tennis shoes and a gourmet diet of stale dry ramen.

I'm tortured by not being able to find a good punchline to "a devlishly handsome teenager, a bird, and a blue alien walk into the woods."


	8. Listening Party

**Author's Note: **Combining two of my great loves, 90's music and Animorphs.

**Listening Party**

-/-

-/-

During my time on Earth, I have become very familiar with many aspects of human culture, due to the knowledge of my fellow Animorphs and the occasional excursion out of the woods and into human society. Most aspects of human society no longer baffle me the way they once did – the sense of logic behind many of their choices is odd, but usually fairly consistent, and I have come to appreciate the design of many human artifacts that would be pleasing to me if I were human.

I will not, however, ever understand why Marco enjoys the lists of shrieked random syllables and mispronounced words that he calls 'Jagged Little Pill'.

"It's like ray-eee-aain! On your wedding day!" Marco sang in a voice that was, surprisingly, even more unpleasant than that of 'Alanis Morissette'. "See, Ax, this is what the 90's are all about. Pretty women dressing up and yodeling out a bunch of words they don't know."

I placed my hands over my ears, which Marco has told me is the American Sign Language gesture for "turn it off".

"Oh, come on. You liked Public Enemy and that's way more noisy than this," he complained.

{I appreciated the vivacity of Public Enemy,} I said, not telling him that while I understood why someone might enjoy Public Enemy, I personally did not find them enjoyable. In fact, I hadn't enjoyed any of Marco's music, but I was pretending to not dislike it for his sake. I had the impression that it was important to him that I enjoy it, or at least humor him.

Tobias flared his wings as he landed on the back of the couch. {Do I even want to-}

Marco interrupted. "Women of rock, Tobias! I'm introducing Ax to the best of angry girls singing about their ex-boyfriends. You've got to know some of these bands. I would have pegged you as a Ten Thousand Maniacs fan if you have taste, a Sarah McLachlan fan if you don't."

{I actually don't know who either of those people are,} Tobias said with what I assumed was disdain.

"Really, you've never listened to period music?"

{You are so lucky Rachel's not here to hear that.}

"Oh, come on, I've been waiting all day to use that joke."

I did not understand the humor. {Marco has been subjecting me to popular human music in your absence, Tobias. Yesterday we listened to "the classics of hip-hop". Today we've listened to bands named Le Tigre, No Doubt and Alanis Morissette.}

Marco sighed. "Alanis Morissette isn't a band, Ax. It's a girl with a backing band."

I still did not understand the practice of naming musical outfits. Some were simply the names of the most prominent member, while others appeared to be various nouns that were completely inadequate in describing the band members or the music. Even then, there were other bands that seemed to name themselves after seemingly random phrases or combinations of arbitrary words and numbers.

{I know No Doubt, at least,} Tobias added. {They had that video with the blonde girl and the silly string, or something like that.}

"It was Gwen Stefani and telephone cords. You know, because the song was all about "leave a message and I'll call you back"? How out of the loop are you?"

{I've been a hawk, Marco. I've had better things to do with my time than buy more CDs than I'd ever have time to listen to.}

"Yeah, but that song was out a year before you got stuck hunting mice. And I always have time for Gwen Stefani," Marco said, raising and lowering his eyebrows.

{Hey, I'm not saying Gwen Stefani isn't attractive.}

{I don't understand how Gwen Stefani's attractiveness influences the music.}

Tobias turned his head towards Marco. {So he didn't like Gwen Stefani?}

"He said something to the effect that she sounds like a horse, which is completely missing the point of Gwen Stefani."

{What is the point of Gwen Stefani?}

"To look good on album covers and help me pick up chicks who think Tragic Kingdom is so, like, totally the story of their like, lives, you know?"

{How often has that worked?} Tobias asked. Marco shrugged.

{I preferred the lyrics spoken in rhythm with percussion,} I continued, {and the complex mathematical compositions we listened to on Monday.}

"He liked Tupac and Tool. He's the exact opposite of my dad," Marco clarified.

{He didn't like classical?}

"No, I didn't like classical."

{Ah.}

{Could we listen to a different record? I normally understand the appeal of your music but I believe Alanis Morissette to be intolerable.}

Marco sighed and popped open his stereo. "Fine, fine. Just don't come crying back to Alanis when I introduce you to Hole."


	9. Formula

**Formula**

-/-

-/-

Marco, Tobias and Ax did things in the woods, probably instigated by Marco's attempts to introduce Ax to pop culture or human icebreakers. Marco and Tobias traded witty remarks, balancing between being annoyed by each other and appreciating the other's company, and Ax asked several unintentionally awkward questions. There was understated angst; there is always understated angst. It was concluded by a bittersweet exchange or a final punchline, leaving us reminded that they are only children in a war, desperately seeking a distraction.


	10. Stargazing

**Stargazing**

-/-

-/-

"Tobias?"

{What?}

"Are you asleep?"

{As a matter of fact, I was. Did you seriously just wake me up to ask if I was sleeping? Seriously?}

"Yeah, pretty much."

{Go to sleep or go back to the valley, Marco. Take your pick.}

"Fine. I choose sleep. Yeesh, talk about cranky."

{It's pitch-black and you just woke me up just because you wanted to know if I was awake. It's your fault I'm cranky.}

"I get the point. I'm going to sleep now."

{Good.}

"Hey, Tobias?"

{What, Marco?}

"Nothing."

{You're doing this on purpose.}

"Maybe. Actually, I had a question."

{Is it a pressing enough question to justify you waking me up?}

"Do you ever get the feeling that our lives are one big set-up for a joke? In a really, really dark comedy kind of way?"

{No.}

"You don't?"

{No, no as in 'no, that isn't a good enough question to justify waking me up' no.}

"Because you know me, I'm paranoid as is. But we both know the Ellimist isn't letting us on to everything. Maybe it's not that he cares about good and evil. Maybe this is just some really elaborate version of a senior prank to him, and soon enough the other foot's going to drop and we'll all be dead and he'll be off in space laughing it up with Crayak."

{Well, that's an encouraging bedtime thought.}

"I mean, it's too many coincidences. Both of our families, and Cassie as an _estreen_, and Rachel being all Amazonian war-babe, and Ax being Elfangor's brother – I'm just getting the feeling like it's the cosmic version of a jew, a lawyer and the pope walk into a bar. You choose a bunch of mismatched but recognizable people and put them in a familiar scenario and then unfortunately, end up with a punchline."

{Why unfortunately?}

"Because most punchlines end in either humiliation, injury or death. And we've been through the whole humiliation and injury bit, so that just leaves death as the punchline, if my theory's right and this is all some really bad, way-too-long joke between Ellimist and Crayak, that's the only result."

{Who says injury and humiliation can't be a running joke?}

"Good point, but that's not the way bar jokes work."

{You know what I think? I think you've spent too much time thinking about this.}

"You just can't deny that the universe is out to get us. And what else am I going to do when Ax is hogging the computer all the time?"

{Marco, you are using the computer sixty percent of the time when we are both awake. I have none of your alleged monopoly.}

"Whoa, Ax, can you say 'light sleeper'?"

{Andalites were once preyed upon by other creatures on our planet. We eliminated the predators many millennia ago, of course, but we have maintained a state of perpetual readiness and alertness.}

"Well, it's good to know that we have you as our blue alien attack dog in case any owls start going after Tobias tonight."

{That's really not as funny as you think it is.}

"Really? I think it's hysterical. Hey, Ax, can you point out your star to us?"

{It is near that cluster of stars, but unfortunately it isn't visible from Earth. And it is a planet, not a star.}

"Just think. Someday, legions of brave, self-sacrificing cinnamon buns may make the long and tasking journey up there."

{I hope that someday our people will exchange such technologies. I would like to introduce my parents to the cinnamon bun.}

{I think I'd like to meet your parents too, Ax. I guess they're my grandparents.}

{I would like for you to meet them, Tobias, and I'm sure they would be eager to meet you. Even though I'm sure they'd disapprove of Elfangor's time spent as a _nothlit_, you are their grandson.}

"Hell, if you're doing an outer space road trip, you've got to take me along as the driver."

{We'll even put up with you if you let us keep you gagged the whole way.}

"Oh, Tobias, you sure know how to make a guy feel loved."

{Well, I don't know about you two, but I'm going back to bed, if a certain someone would stop waking me up.}

"I have no idea who you're talking about. Nighty night, everyone. Don't let the bedbugs suck you dry."

{Goodnight, Tobias, Marco.}

{Night, you guys.}

"Tobias?"

{What, Marco?}

"Can you get me a glass of water?"

{Shut up and let me sleep, Marco.}


	11. Study Group

**Author's Note:** This chapter is dedicated to two people. Firstly, Alikat522, my faithful beta and the author of _O, For a Muse of Shredder Fire_, the one-shot that informed this fic. If you love Tobias and Ax downtime, I highly recommend reading it. It's listed in my favorites.

Secondly, Natural Blue 26, who writes a Rachel so lovely she made me rediscover the character.

-/-

**Study Group**

-/-

-/-

"So, does Jake know that you're having us do your homework?" Marco asked from the couch, eyes not leaving the television.

Rachel grimaced, eyes similarly stationary, but focused instead on a heavy textbook in front of her. "Tobias and Ax are just checking my answers, and I don't see you doing my homework. Would you like to be?"

"Sure. It'll remind me of the good old days of the Daily Goo and locker rooms. Only without all that."

Rachel laughed. "Like hell I'd actually let you touch my homework. This stuff actually gets graded, you know. You'd get your slackerness on it and all of a sudden, I'd be getting straight C's and failing gym."

"I didn't actually fail-"

Tobias interrupted. {Marco, she's seen you spell America with two R's. You're not touching her homework. Answers would just change themselves to the wrong ones.}

"I was in elementary school-"

"You were in eighth grade American History," Rachel corrected. "I was there."

Marco frowned. "I could at least check your math."

"Do you seriously miss school that much? And Ax is already doing that."

{I would like to clarify that I could have corrected this arithmetic as a child. Your school system seems to believe that its students are mathematical imbeciles.}

"He's missed a few of his arrogance sensitivity classes," Marco noted.

{I sort of miss the learning part of school,} Tobias mused. {Not the school by any stretch of the imagination, but there were actually a few teachers I liked.}

"Tobias, if you were looking for a way to _not_ get pounded, being a teacher's pet wasn't it. Ow!"

Rachel retracted her fist from Marco's side.

{Anyway,} Tobias continued a bit huffily, {I actually really liked Mr. Feyroyan's class. We got to read some pretty cool books in that one.}

"Feyroyan was the teacher who matched tailored jeans with sandals and white socks, right?" Rachel asked while Marco rolled his eyes. "I never had a class with him."

{He was pretty good. Really animated, enthusiastic guy. I think most kids actually learned something in that class.}

"Imagine that," Marco muttered, flipping the channel.

"All I know is that I stopped paying much attention to school readings around when they introduced us to Shakespeare. It's not that I don't like theatre, but I didn't understand enough of it to really get the drama or the humor or whatever. I mean, I still read it, but I skim most of it," Rachel said, highlighting a particularly insightful sentence. "But Lady Macbeth freaked me out."

"See too much of yourself?"

Rachel moved to punch Marco in the side again, but he anticipated and slid nimbly to the armrest of the couch, out of reach. "I'd take Lady Macbeth any day over that guy from a Midsummer Night's Dream."

"Huh?"

"You know, the one with a donkey head," Rachel still kept one hand clenched into a fist, waiting for Marco to get closer. "Anyway, he was an idiot. Much like someone else I could point out here."

{Nick Bottom? Yeah, he was an idiot, but he was too much of the group leader,} Tobias commented.

{I believed Peter Quince to be the leader,} Ax said, still reading through Rachel's assignment with his stalk eyes. {Was I wrong? I have difficulty understanding most of Shakespeare's comedic works.}

{Well, Quince was the leader, but Nick Bottom took charge. I guess Marco could be Rosencrantz or Guildenstern, but they both were occasionally insightful.}

"Whoa, whoa, wait," Marco said, holding up his hands. "This is way too literary for me. And how does our resident alien know more about Shakespeare than I do?"

{Because you slept through class and we got him a copy of the Riverside Shakespeare?} Tobias fluttered down to the table next to Rachel, using his talon to indicate a sentence that needed readjustment. {Your grammar's a bit off here. So how is Dante's Inferno, anyway?}

"Eh," Rachel shrugged. "Dante follows this girl into hell, witnesses terrible things, barely escapes horrible scenarios. Pretty standard stuff."

"So pretty much us any time you say 'let's do it'," Marco said dryly, pulling the book from off the beaten-up, warped coffee table they'd been using.

"You know what the weird thing is? I get the feeling that Dante's hell would be a lot more interesting if we were, you know, normal kids. But with the lives we live, getting chewed on by Cerberus is kind of small potatoes." Rachel carefully erased every trace of the offending sentence and neatly rewrote it.

Marco flipped through the book. "Getting bitten by mosquitoes is seriously a punishment?"

{I have never understood why your Christian god exacts infinite punishment for finite sinning. Even if the punishment is as inconsequential as mosquito bites,} Ax added, pushing a page with a few circled answers over to Rachel. {It seems to be an inherently unjust system.}

{Yeah, I never got that either. It doesn't really work with the whole 'loving god' thing, does it?}

Rachel tapped her pencil eraser to her lower lip thoughtfully. "Not to mention the unbaptised babies. That just doesn't seem right."

"You're forgetting his biggest crime," Marco said. "Scheduling church to be at nine a.m. on a weekend."

{I didn't know you went to church,} Tobias said as he fluttered back up to the backrest of the sofa. Rachel reached a hand up to discretely stroke his wing feathers.

"You didn't go?"

{No one in my family ever cared enough.}

"My mom's Catholic, but she used to let me sneak my GameBoy into sermons, so it wasn't that bad. We stopped going when I was eleven because sleep is way more important." Marco, satisfied that Rachel had forgotten about jabbing a fist into his side over the Lady Macbeth remark, settled back into a comfortable position on the couch. "Hey, Ax, do Andalites ever have to get up early and go do religious crap?"

Ax snorted in that slight, condescending way that Andalites do. {We perform our rituals, but they are not the primitive, needlessly complicated, highly contradictory ceremonies that humans engage in.}

After a pause, he added, {I did not mean to offend. I understand that religion can be as important to humans as rituals are to my own race.}

"Not like anyone here cares," Rachel said.

{So are the rituals religious?} Tobias asked. {I always got the feeling that they were more, I don't know, about tradition. Cultural? Is that the word I'm looking for?}

{They don't have anything to do with a deity. But there is a spiritual element in the honor of the warrior and the will of the people.}

"Our gods get lightning and brimstone and your gods get…democracy?" Marco asked.

{We don't believe in gods. There are some more uncivilized Andalite cultures that cling to theistic cultures, but we don't give physical bodies to virtue. We perform the rituals because they are inspirational and honorable, and because they remind us to appreciate the elements that sustain life.}

{I've always thought the rituals were sort of cool. You should teach me more of them sometime. The only element I'm in touch with is air,} Tobias said. {Not that I'm especially spiritual, but I could try.}

"Do any of us humans here give actually damn about spirituality?" Marco said as he grimaced at an illustration in Rachel's book. "We've all met the Ellimist, and that's grounds enough for reconsidering religion."

{If I thought he actually was God, I'd probably have been a bit more polite.}

Marco shrugged. "Whatever. He ticks me off too. I'm hoping he's not actually all there is, or we're really screwed."

"Yeah, champions of the Iskoort or not, we don't have a great track record for unquestioning obedience," Rachel said.

{Most Andalites believe Ellimists to be children's tales. We have not been a religious society in many generations, so the Ellimists are the closest we have to omnipotent beings. Or a singular Ellimist, though there is something distasteful about a single omnipotent being.} Ax tilted his head.

"Don't forget Crayak," Rachel muttered darkly.

Ax continued. {Perhaps there is some truth in human folklore as well.}

"What, like fairies and leprechauns?" Marco asked.

"Well," Rachel said. "We know dwarves exist because I'm sitting on the couch with one."

"Oh, shut up, Xena," Marco said as he tossed Rachel's copy of Dante's Inferno at her.


End file.
